100+ homeowners alleged scammed by mortgage-assistance lawyer

An Orchard Lake attorney has been arraigned on charges relating to allegedly stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from more than 100 people in a mortgage assistance scheme.

Steven Ruza and his company Home Legal Group are accused of telling people he could help them prevent their homes from being foreclosed upon, but then did nothing or next to nothing to get the modifications. Most of them lost their homes, according to court documents.

Ruza and the company are charged with 30 counts connected to alleged activities between Jan. 1, 2012, and April 30 -- 26 counts of obtaining money through false pretenses (making false statements to consumers), a felony punishable by up to five years in prison and/or a $10,000 fine; two counts of attempted false pretenses over $20,000 but less than $50,000, a felony punishable by five years' imprisonment; one count of attempted false pretenses of $1,000 or more but less than $20,000, punishable by up to five years in prison; and one count of racketeering, a felony punishable by 20 years in prison and/or a $100,000 fine.

Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette said that the racketeering count includes an additional 114 alleged victims.

The 52-year-old lawyer pleaded not guilty on Friday in 48th District Court in West Bloomfield, the attorney general announced today. Bond was set at $1 million cash/surety for Ruza and $500,000 cash/surety for Home Legal Group.

Ruza and his defense attorney of record could not be reached immediately for comment.

"Scam artists who prey on Michigan families are deplorable, and especially so in this case where the families were already having trouble making ends meet," Schuette said in a statement. "We will continue to aggressively dismantle these predatory operations and prosecute the criminals behind these schemes."

Kurt Pfister is among the alleged victims named in the felony complaint. He was among the few who didn't lose his house, because after what he described as months of stalling by Ruza, he went to another lawyer for help getting a modification.

The 69-year-old owner of Kurt's Kustom Promotions is working fulltime to pay off the $50,000 that remains on his Ferndale mortgage. He estimated that he paid Ruza $6,000 over seven to nine months.

"He didn't get it done.He didn't get it done. He didn't get it done," Pfister said. "I'll probably be 108 when I pay it off... I can't afford to retire now, because of the mortgage situation. I'm trying to keep a stiff upper lip"

According to Ruza's Web site, he earned his law degree from the University of Detroit Law School and an LLM from the New York University School of Law.

"Naturally tenacious and self-motivated, Mr. Ruza possesses more than twenty (20) years of experience in zealously assisting individuals and businesses in resolving their financial and legal challenges," it reads.